STRASBOURG - Constitutional Court Chairman Mustafa Bumin said on Tuesday that close cooperation and contact with European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) would be important regarding the development of human rights.
Bumin, who was accompanied by Constitutional Court members, met with ECHR President Lozius Wildhaber and Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe Maud de Boer-Buquicchio.
Bumin told reporters after his meetings that Council of Europe and ECHR were pleased with legal reforms that were fulfilled in Turkey.
Bumin said, ''ECHR officials said that no cases special to Turkey remained in ECHR and noted that cases of Turkey have similar structures with the cases of other European countries. This is a positive development. ECHR officials said that they were pleased that cases especially from Southeast Anatolia ended with the coming of peace to the region. Close cooperation with ECHR is important for the development of human rights. The number of cases of Turkey are decreasing.''
Noting that ECHR officials had asked questions about closure cases of political parties, Bumin said that closing political parties had become difficult after the laws adopted in 1995 and 2002 in Turkey, adding that he thought that this issue would completely be removed from the agenda.
Bumin recalled that problem of length of jurisdiction process was existing not only in Turkey, but also in whole Europe and even in ECHR. He said that Wildhaber also accepted it.
Emphasizing that there were discussions in Turkey regarding the length of jurisdiction process, Bumin said that prosecutor and the lawyer of suspect could find friendly solutions before the trial as it happened in U.S. jurisdiction system and this could importantly decrease the number of hearings.
Bumin said that the number of prosecutor, judge and assistant personnel should be increased and the physical situation of courts should be improved.
(GC-AÖ) 23.09.2003